Goodmark 1970 Chevy Chevelle Restoration - Rust No More

Just about anyone who has tackled rust repair on his or her car or truck has realized that if there is cancer here or there, you can bet the rust army has also infiltrated the inner (or unseen by most) structure of various other parts of the car. It's not uncommon to cut out a section of rusted body only to discover the inner sheetmetal has the same problem. A lot of times we just repair the outside, knowing no one (besides Superman) can see through the outer layer to what is behind the seemingly straight outer shell. Don't feel bad, it's common to just about any type of restoration.

This is precisely why Goodmark Industries has worked so hard to reproduce not just the outer body panels, but the inner sheetmetal, as well. As time rolls on, we should see more and more replacement inner and outer panels being reproduced for many body styles and makes. The need for replacement inner panels is going to become more wide spread as the amount of rust-free cars, or cars with minimal rust, become harder and harder to find.

Unbolting the door hinges is sometimes a job in itself, but a necessary one when reskinning car doors. This is a good time to inspect the hinges, or, more specifically, the hinge pins. These wear out over time and can easily be replaced at this stage.

Unbolting the door hinges is sometimes a job in itself, but a necessary one when reskinnin

This is where the Goodmark Chevelle comes into play. Remember the idea was to find a car with a huge amount of rust and return it to as close to a perfect body as possible. In this second segment in the Chevelle's restoration, we'll show you what it took to reskin the doors, replace the rusted-through floor sections, and finally replace the cowl with a clean unit from a donor car (replacement cowls have not yet been produced). Once the rusted cowl was removed, a large amount of cancer showed up in the inner cowl structure (big surprise). This was quickly cut out and replaced with another part from a clean donor car.

This segment details the second part of the Chevelle's body restoration process, which means we can move onto the body mods for the next issue.

Grinding only the edge will separate the outer skin with the cleanest results. Pay close attention not to grind too much away, just enough to separate the two pieces of sheetmetal.